Bridgewater Business Creating Luxury Through Major Expansion

Acura has been said to be the luxury arm of Honda, and customers expect more from the dealership—and Bridgewater Acura, on Route 22, is hoping its newest expansion plan will be reflective of that luxury.

Michael Gialetta, general manager of Bridgewater Acura, has announced a $7 million expansion plan for the business that will include a state-of-the-art service lounge and four-story parking deck to store inventory and cars needing repairs.

"We needed something to portray that luxury image," he said. "But we currently don't utilize the property correctly."

The expansion was originally discussed in 2008, Gialetta said, when the company began to research the options and costs of moving forward with it. Then, he said, the market collapsed.

"We started doing research early, but then we put it on hold for six to eight months," he said. "But I said, let's get the permits. We were approved, and I said, why wait."

Gialetta said he probably would have begun the work sooner, if not for the economic slowdown.

The project began, Gialetta said, with a plan to redo the lounge area, which will be constructed after offices are relocated from inside the building.

"We are going to gut out the parts department, and put in a lounge with a quiet area," he said. "Then we will take those offices and put them in a different area."

Basically, Gialetta said, he is pushing for a "top notch luxury experience," with television sets and other amenities to make customers comfortable while they wait for their cars to be repaired.

Currently, Gialetta said, the lounge is an extension of the sales department, rather than the service department, which would make more sense. People working with customers on their cars are required to walk around the entire building just to find the service lounge, he said.

"The lounge now is very small, and it's not aesthetically pleasing," he said.

The next project is the parking deck, which will replace a warehouse the company currently rents to store much of its inventory.

"We have now figured out a way to keep our inventory on our property, and maximize our space," Gialetta said.

The deck is expected to be finished by December, Gialetta said, which is when the lease expires on the warehouse.

With the deck, Gialetta said, it will be easier for the company to store its inventory that will not need to be cleaned off after it snows in the winter, or rains throughout the year. The deck, he said, is expected to be about 30,000 square feet when it is completed, and construction has already begun on the area.

"The cars will always be clean and dry," he said. "And people won't have to walk outside to get to their cars."

In the warehouse, which the company has rented for about five years, it normally stores about 150 to 175 new cars, Gialetta said.

The business itself opened in 1989, Gialetta said, and, by 1999, the dealership was selling about 50 to 60 new cars per month. By the time of the economic downturn, he said, the company was selling about 130 per month, and the rest of the space was being used for used cars, of which about 100 were sold per month.

"The more cars you sell, the more cars the factory gives to you," he said.

But, Gialetta said, the company was finding that it was running out of space on its lot, so it had invested in the warehouse to store additional vehicles.

Once the economy began to suffer, those numbers began to dwindle, until the company was only selling between 70 and 90 cars per month, Gialetta said,

"People began to buy more used cars after the economic crisis," he said.

But with the new parking deck to house the vehicles, Gialetta said, the company will be able to store more merchandise once the tide inevitably shifts.

"We will maximize the use of the property," he said. "We have the flexibility to grow into the property, and we won't have to do other expansions later."

Gialetta said it probably would actually have cost more to do the construction three years ago, before the economic crisis.

"Now, people are looking for more capital improvement projects," he said. "It is 150 percent worth it to do it now."

Aside from the new lounge and parking deck, the project also includes an expansion of the service and parts department, which will be built adjacent to the current property and will feature a car wash, complete with hot air dryers and a hi-power vacuum. There will also be six new service bays, allowing the company to work on 22 cars at any one time.

That entire building, once completed, will be about 20,000 square feet.

"We are taking out the offices and putting them in a different location," Gialetta said. "It will be a two-story service and parts building."

As for the plan of construction, Gialetta said the parking deck is expected to be completed first, with the new service and parts department to be done in the spring of 2011, and the lounge to be completed in the summer of 2011.

At this point, Gialetta said, customers are mostly curious about the changes to be made to the building, and the new offerings that will be included. He said customers can see the construction going on, and there is a mix of curiosity and excitement in the air.

"We have new renderings showing how it will all look," he said. "Of course the downside is that it is frustrating because the whole property is a dustbowl."

Throughout the process, Gialetta said, the township has been helpful in moving the approvals forward, and granting the company the access to do what it needs to do, despite Bridgewater's recent consideration of zoning rules to keep new dealerships from expanding.

"They didn't want new dealerships, but they were letting existing ones do what they want to expand," he said. "The township was helpful, and liked our ideas."

At this point, Gialetta said, the company is working with the township on landscaping plans for the property.

"We are landscaping the entire grounds, so there is a very pleasant view," he said.

With the project underway, Gialetta said he is looking forward to offering a more luxurious experience for customers, and providing a simple way for them to bring their cars in for service and purchase new ones.

"We want to give the luxury experience from top to bottom," he said. "It is expensive to buy and maintain a car, and we want to make sure customers know we appreciate their business. We want this to be a pleasant experience, not a headache."